This summer, a mid-city stretch of Pico Boulevard received bright purple painted curb extensions. They are located at two Pico intersections: Hauser Boulevard and Curson Avenue.
The safety upgrades are part of Mayor Garcetti's Great Streets Initiative. The 14-block stretch of Pico from Cochran Avenue to Fairfax Avenue was City Council President Herb Wesson's designated Great Streets project. With a boost from a 2016 Great Streets challenge grant (for outreach, planning, and some implementation), the Pico Great Street Collaborative - a group of local residents and business owners - facilitated a community-driven design process to make Pico safer, more beautiful, and more walkable.
The Pico collaborative led extensive community outreach to come up with a plan they titled Destination: Pico. The collaborative is partnering with the mayor's office, the council office, LADOT, Public Works, the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition, the P.I.C.O. Neighborhood Council, and others to plan and implement improvements.
The grant and plan focus on five blocks from Curson Avenue to Burnside Avenue. The improvements includes numerous components (mostly from the Destination: Pico plan, technically some are separate), only a few of which are in place so far: new trees, landscaped parkways, a sidewalk mini-park (Coloring Book plaza at the southeast corner of Pico and Hauser Blvd), a new mid-block signalized crosswalk, pedestrian head-start signals, public art, and more.
Even today's purple curb extensions are not quite finished; they will soon receive planters.
Streetsblog L.A. plans to cover Great Streets' Destination Pico project in more detail in the near future, especially as new features are implemented.
